You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll possibly offer me medical advice

Hey people. Hopefully you survived the Tourette's inducing cold last week. There was one night when me and a friend went out and the cold air assaulting us on the way to our car unleashed a Steve Carell-getting-his-chest-waxed string of profanity.

This is what the most commonly used door to our house looks like right now. Our front door entrance was never really finished properly. There is a space for a sidewalk leading from the very dished 27 year old dirt drive, but no actual walk, just grass. Everyone just walks around to the back. In winter forget it. No one wants to tromp through our whole snowy yard.

So, after some standing around in the driveway surveying the house, people usually approach our garage door where they now find this helpful sign.

After wading past the six bikes, snow blower, firewood, art supplies etc, they come to the door to our house. Note open switch box with mysterious LIVE wires hanging out. The guy who built our house had Alzheimer's before he died and was fond of doing non-essential, (non-sensical, actually), electrical work.

Also note the post-it notes that act as our security system. Most people are still a bit befuddled once they reach this point so some instructions seemed necessary.






So far so good. :)

In other SueNews:

I think I broke my ass you guys. I fell skiing a couple weeks ago. It wasn't a huge fall, and the hill wasn't even that big, but I managed to fall straight back onto my tailbone. It still hurts and is beginning to piss me off.

Yesterday I tried riding the mountain bike trail for the first time. I have really missed riding, and it felt great to be hovering over Penny again, even if she drifted around a little, sliding on the snow. My pac boots did the job-- I figure most guy's feet are about as big as my boots anyway and they manage. The chopper mitts-- not so much. Couldn't really shift, and had a choice between hanging on OR breaking which made it kind of interesting. The main problem though was my tailbone.

Every pedal stroke was pretty much agony. This isn't a bruise thing, more like a pinched nerve thing.

I also have been still skiing, and I don't have as much kick because pushing off hurts. Eventually the extension behind seems to loosen it up, but climbing hills hurts. Mountain biking has, of course, ruined me for ordinary fun and the downhills are no longer exciting enough and all have to be bombed and still aren't thrilly enough. But they do distract me from the hurtiness. :)

BUT-- my butt you guys!!! I don't know if this is a case of keep doing stuff that hurts to get it over it faster, or if I'm delaying the healing by irritating it. Riding really hurt, making it frustratingly less fun than anticipated.

Any ideas???

You haven't cried yet you say? What about the crying? Well, get ready. Even you manly dudes may want to have a tissue handy.

Several people have brought this to my attention-- a vid about a service dog who flunked out of his program, only to become a surfing dog, helping paralyzed surfers. Amazing.